iPhoto newbie questions

I've finally decided to organize my photos within iphoto, but I have a few quick newb questions.

I have my albums as below, but I can't seem how to add photos to the albums. For example, I have a album called Nottingham, which is the city I live in, I want to continually update this album with picture as I take them, but don't see a way of doing this.

I find that Events is only a starting place to get photos into iPhoto and a very poor way to organize my photos. As my photo's add up in the 1,000's and Events in the 100's how am I going to remember which Event I placed what photo a few years from now? Using Smart Album's and Keywords makes organizing and finding photos so much easier than scrolling down Events or folders and trying to remember where I placed them.
Lets say I have a photo of Uncle Bob that I took on vacation in 2003 at Blue Lake in Idaho, I added the Key Words, Blue Lake, Family, Vacation and Idaho. I can now find that picture several ways and not have to remember what Event the photo is in. I can find him by typing Uncle Bob or Family or Idaho or Blue Lake or Vacations or any other Keyword I used to describe that photo. I could even sort my whole library by Date and scroll down to about the time I took the picture. That is just some of the ways to find a photo fast. Uncle Bob would show up in several Smart Albums, but you would still only have two Pictures of him, the Original and a Modified, well there is a small thumbnail of each too. I have Smart Albums set up with rules to include only photos with certain Keywords. The way iPhoto will let you organize and find your photos is almost endless, but using Events is not much better that just tossing your photo's in a folder on your hard drive and trying to find them with Finder. Give a little thought to how you organize your photos and how you might want to find a photo at a later date and you will find iPhoto an amazing Application.

I find that Events is only a starting place to get photos into iPhoto and a very poor way to organize my photos. As my photo's add up in the 1,000's and Events in the 100's how am I going to remember which Event I placed what photo a few years from now? Using Smart Album's and Keywords makes organizing and finding photos so much easier than scrolling down Events or folders and trying to remember where I placed them.
Lets say I have a photo of Uncle Bob that I took on vacation in 2003 at Blue Lake in Idaho, I added the Key Words, Blue Lake, Family, Vacation and Idaho. I can now find that picture several ways and not have to remember what Event the photo is in. I can find him by typing Uncle Bob or Family or Idaho or Blue Lake or Vacations or any other Keyword I used to describe that photo. I could even sort my whole library by Date and scroll down to about the time I took the picture. That is just some of the ways to find a photo fast. Uncle Bob would show up in several Smart Albums, but you would still only have two Pictures of him, the Original and a Modified, well there is a small thumbnail of each too. I have Smart Albums set up with rules to include only photos with certain Keywords. The way iPhoto will let you organize and find your photos is almost endless, but using Events is not much better that just tossing your photo's in a folder on your hard drive and trying to find them with Finder. Give a little thought to how you organize your photos and how you might want to find a photo at a later date and you will find iPhoto an amazing Application.

Click to expand...

Thanks, think I'm going to upgrade to ilike 09 now as I wast the faces feature etc.

MacRumors attracts a broad audience
of both consumers and professionals interested in
the latest technologies and products. We also boast an active community focused on
purchasing decisions and technical aspects of the iPhone, iPod, iPad, and Mac platforms.